


A Sentimental Value

by macabre



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Eames is still a thief, and Robert is still the son of one of the wealthiest men in the world: he’s also been missing for the past several years. When they meet, it’s with a collision that ends with Eames’ least planned theft.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sentimental Value

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Inception Reverse Bang Round 2. Artwork can be found [here](http://bunnyford.livejournal.com/3308.html#cutid1). Thank you to my artist, [bunnyford](http://bunnyford.livejournal.com/), and my betas, [cromonym](http://chromonym.livejournal.com/) and [hotcoffeekisses](http://hotcoffeekisses.livejournal.com/)!

The first time Eames steals is when he’s eight and already in foster care; his guardian at the time leaves him alone in their local pharmacy where he can’t quite differentiate between candy and pills. He takes a trip to the ER for that and a following trip to another foster home shortly after, which is a shame because the guardian before was the only decent foster parent he ever had, even with the ER trip included. When he starts stealing regularly later in life, a small time master thief by the age of fourteen, he always remembers his first time fondly though, because it should have sent a message, but he prides himself on never quite taking it. 

He makes it out of the system by age seventeen, but then he’s on his own for the first real time ever; he never fully comprehended the word, the complications and the few moments of joy it would bring. He bounces from place to place for years, living on the floors of other kids made adults from the foster care. Occasionally he’ll warm the bed of someone trying to save his poor, orphaned soul, some middle-aged man or woman with an upscale apartment and nine PM curfew because of work the next day, but he never sleeps well there, so he heads out the door with a few souvenirs once they’re comfortably asleep. 

He never takes anything big; hardly ever nicks money off of someone unless he’s at his absolute worst, and even then it’s never a larger amount than a twenty. Mostly he picks items that a lot of people won’t even notice are missing, or at least not for a while. He’s even acquired an eye for art, for detail, and he never had to suffer a class for it. 

So this is his life now; he wakes up one morning and realizes it’s too late to change, and for the most part, he doesn’t want to. He has his own apartment for the time being, albeit his name isn’t on the lease and it’s in a rundown building in a rundown area. He makes a honest earning few days a week working the pier for a friend of a friend that he’s fabricated, but he’s also sure the man has realized this by now and hasn’t said anything, and yes, what he can’t earn he sometimes subsidizes, but Eames is careful about who and what. 

Then there’s a night when he’s not so careful, and it involves a man crossing the street where the lights have gone out and he’s running so fast in dark clothes Eames barely finds the brakes in time. 

It’s true that Eames is borrowing the car, and he had to gun it down an alleyway and onto the next street more quickly than he’d like; it gets his adrenaline going just enough – he does pride himself on staying cool no matter what the situation, but then, Eames has never fucked up like this before. He hits the breaks and the car is new and nice enough that they hardly squeal and the vehicle comes to a complete stop just instances later, but it doesn’t matter because there’s a _bang_ and a dark figure disappears under the hood of his car where he can’t see him.

He’s absolutely frozen in shock for a long moment, then throws off the seatbelt and opens the door before realizing he hasn’t even put the car in park yet, as if now he needs to run over the sodding bastard again. He tears the keys out of the ignition this time, dropping them in the seat somewhere as he peels around the front bumper.

The victim lies sprawl eagle on the pavement, his black hoodie still wrapped around his head, shadowing his face. Cautiously, not really wanting to know for sure if the poor man’s dead or not, Eames crouches next to his head and gently nudges the hood back. He’s a scrawny guy, with a ginger tinted beard to contrast how dark the rest of his hair is. Glancing over the remainder of his body, Eames can’t identify where the car impacted it - all of his clothing is baggy and black so blood is impossible to see. 

The man’s lips are parted, so Eames slowly reaches for them, hovering his palm over his mouth to feel air moving past. Regular breathing. “Thank fuck!” Now he can breath normally too. He doesn’t even realize that he’s dropped his hand onto the guy’s mouth until there’s a groan followed by a quick yelp.

The man jerks up, nearly headbutting Eames, who is promptly worried about the man moving so soon. “Shit, stay down will ya?” He presses a hand gently on his chest, pushing, but all the man does is yell some more. Eames fights the urge to cover his mouth again, but he realizes if he was in the same situation, he’d be screaming too. 

“Shit, I’m sorry, just-“ but he doesn’t finish because the guy is still struggling, now without any assistance from Eames is sitting up. His limbs are thin, and flailing, and Eames can’t believe the guy wasn’t snapped in half by the car. His face flashes into the headlights, and Eames belatedly acknowledges that the man already has a mostly faded bruise around one eye, and a few healing cuts on one cheek with fresh new ones on the other. “I’m not the first one to get you, huh?” 

The man is wobbling onto his feet, but falls back onto his ass, double taking at the other man in front of him as if noticing him for the first time. “What the fuck man? You fucking hit me!” He pulls himself up only by scrambling up the hood. 

“I’m sorry - I didn’t see you!” Eames tries to help hold the guy up who is still tilting to one side dangerous. He grimaces when he notices the way the guy wraps an arm around his stomach delicately. 

“Oh yeah? And where did you learn how to drive?” He takes a step forward and winces. “Didn’t they teach you to look both ways?”

“Actually, I think that’s the pedestrian’s job.” From bloodshot eyes, the guy gives him a frightening glare. “Where are you hurt? Did your torso take the blow?” He moves towards him, hands open, ready to gently probe for injuries, but the man jumps back. 

“Fuck you,” he spits. He twists around and tries walking away quickly, but he’s wheezing by the time he hits the sidewalk. 

“If you’re not going to let me help you, then I’m taking you to the hospital.” One glance at the man tells him he won’t have any kind of insurance, but Eames will take the bills. He’ll find the cash somehow. 

The man sways from side to side a little, jerking feebly as Eames takes his arm. It’s not a negotiation; he’s going to take care of this whether the injured man likes it or not. Thankfully, the guy is woozy enough to be led to the passenger side door without much more resistance. 

In the passenger seat during the drive, the man keeps trying to doze off, and Eames keeps him awake, afraid of an obvious concussion. “What’s your name?” He asks, but the man just groans, and other probing questions are answered by a pointed, “Fuck you.”

In the ER, the man snaps away the clipboard requesting his information when Eames asks if he needs help to fill it out. Half amused and half concerned, he watches the man write and judges by mostly sound letters that he seems to be alright. As he reads over the man’s shoulder, he does a double-take, ripping the clipboard out of his hands.

“What game are you playing?” Eames hisses, glancing at the nurse at the station in front of them. When he looks back at the guy’s face, it’s red in anger. “You put down here your name is Robert Fischer! In this city?” He stops, thinking that it could be a more common name than he gives it credit for. “Do you have any ID?”

The guy’s small, but fast – his hand shoots out, gripping the papers, but Eames snaps them back before he can take them. “Or is this some kind of fucking joke?” He thinks again that this poor sod probably doesn’t have any kind of health insurance, but this is going overboard. This isn’t a game he can afford to play.

Robert Fischer is – or was – the son of Maurice Fischer, and Maurice Fischer happens to be one of the wealthiest men in the country, possibly, fuck, he doesn’t know – the world. Robert Fischer disappeared several years ago – there was no notice, no ransom like they assumed there would be. No word at all. And as time went by, they stopped looking for Robert and started looking for a body. They never found it; Robert was just twenty-three when he disappeared, and it was news everywhere. Eames remembers commuting on morning trains where his face constantly surrounded him. So many of him that Robert Fischer could easily disappear again right into the fold.

Looking over the guy again in this new light, Eames supposes he could be around the right age, but it’s hard to tell with the horrible, dirty beard and matted hair, the piles of clothing that hang on him. They all age him – but it’s the eyes. The startling blue of them. 

If there’s one thing Eames recalls from all those haunting pictures of Robert Fischer in the papers, it’s the eyes – seemingly, if he remembers correctly, that same color. 

“Prove it,” Eames asks quietly, one hand no longer holding the clipboard, but the man’s wrist. 

For the first time, the man before him looks frightened. When he opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out, so he shakes his head. Standing, he pulls at his captor’s tight grip, his bony fingers white on his skin where he clutches at Eames with his free hand. He’s going to run for the door, Eames knows, and he’s never going to take proper care of himself out there. 

“Hush, darling.” Eames tries to sound reassuring, standing as well. He folds the man into his side and nods at the curiously glancing nurse, then leads him outside the automatic doors. His companion seems to play along for now, leaning into his side, or maybe he can’t stand on his own right now, Eames isn’t sure. Outside, the air is crisp, and even though he’s already wearing one jacket, Eames is tempted to offer the man his as well as he begins to shiver. He knows how much those tiny movements burn when there’s an injury underneath them. 

Instead the man just continues to lean against him so Eames can feel the vibrations through his chest; Eames is tempted to step away from him for a moment to see if he can stand on his own. “You need medical attention –“ he pauses, “Robert.” Although he can’t see his face, he feels him tense momentarily. “But you can’t tell them you’re Robert Fischer without some kind of identification that explains that you aren’t that Robert Fischer.”

“But I am.” It’s so soft, Eames could choose to believe it was never spoken. He’s not sure if he believes it even now or not. 

“I think it’s best we go back in there and pretend you’re not.” At least for now. Supporting him still, he leads him back inside after a few minutes. His mind is turning over uncomfortably, but he fills out the papers for Robert regardless. 

When the nurse calls the name they’ve forged, Eames has to stay where he is. He watches Robert wobble down the hall by himself and disappear into a room, and he asks himself whether or not he’s going to allow himself to continue calling him Robert. The man looks like he’s a short step away from being homeless – not the kind that would have anything of value on him, including any kind of papers or ID. There would be nothing to prove who he is, unless Robert Fischer had some kind of birthmark or physical blemish that outed him, but Eames wouldn’t know, and he can’t call up any police station to ask. For all he knows, the case is most likely closed.

Of course, they are in a hospital. One blood sample would be all it takes. Eames blanches at the thought, hoping they don’t run any kind of tests like that. If he is who he really says he is, Robert must have a reason for not exposing himself earlier in time. Jesus, everyone thinks he’s dead – but if the man wants to pretend he’s dead, then Eames isn’t going to ruin everything for him. 

His family would know him, if they saw him, surely. If Robert wanted to see them. Eames still can’t figure why Robert Fischer, if he still exists, wouldn’t return to his family. A head injury, maybe, complete and total amnesia. Men like Fischers have no limits. No separation of the wants or needs. It’s not something one walks away from willingly. The only possible solution is that Robert Fischer is dead, and whoever this man is – well, he’s either just confused or desperate. Either way, this accident was still his fault – he’ll handle it, and that’s it. 

Of course, handling it ends up entailing taking Robert home for the night. The doctor lets him go, giving Eames instructions to keep an eye for erratic behavior overnight especially. Eames doesn’t know how to tell him that he wouldn’t know erratic behavior from a man who possibly walked in front of his car on purpose, a thought that is beginning to haunt him.

“Where do you live?” He asks. Robert doesn’t reply, eyes glossy from what he hopes is only fatigue. Even signed off by the doctors, Eames is hesitant to let him sleep. He’s hesitant to take him back to his place, but he doesn’t have a choice. 

He’s surprised when Robert lets him help him up the stairs to his apartment. Eames unlocks the door, freezing when Robert curls into him, arms still dangling at his side. His fingers twitch. “Are you alright?”

Robert of course doesn’t answer; Eames doesn’t think he’s going to open his mouth again this night, not even for the toast and jam he makes him or the water he tries to get him to drink. “Come, darling, you’ll feel better in the morning.” He leads him by the hand to the mattress on the floor. The sheets are clean, at least.

He gives him some of his things to change into – soft sweats and a worn shirt. He unabashedly watches Robert change, helping him with his sweatshirt because his movement is limited, so he can see the damage he’s done. 

It’s awful – there are dark bruises and darkening bruises still forming. He’s going to let Robert stay as long as he needs. 

“They give you something for pain?” He doesn’t know why he asks, not expecting Robert to answer, but he surprises him by nodding. Maybe that’s why he’s so out of it. And clingy.

Eames shuffles around the apartment, putting things in order for the night. Robert tracks his movement, eyes barely open from where he lies on the mattress. When Eames is finished, and his shirt and shoes are removed, he lies on the floor parallel to the mattress. There’s not much room in the studio, so he’s close enough to Robert before the man rolls closer. He studies the ragged beard and hair in this proximity – the freckles barely visible across his cheeks. The dull skin. Things he’ll work on during the healing process, Eames decides.

Until then, it’s the eyes that taunt him. Those clear blue eyes set in a sunken skull. Razor sharp cheekbones that would cut if he reached out and touched them. “You alright? Not going to scream at me to fuck off once more?” 

Shaking his head, Robert closes his eyes. Eames stays awake to count the breaths – and when Robert rolls further into him, he’s not sure if the other man is sleeping or awake and conscious. 

In the morning, Robert is more alert, back to a skittish caution around Eames. “Here, take these.” Eames offers more of the painkillers given to him by the doctor – he’ll need to pick up more soon. They didn’t give him many in the ER. 

Robert seems reluctant to take them though. Eames twists the plastic bottle around. “Prescribed to you by your doctor. Nothing funny, I promise.” Robert is sitting up, but stiffly, clearly trying not to move much. 

He takes them while Eames has his back turned, frying up eggs to go with their toast. It’s all he has in the fridge, unfortunately. He’s not sure Robert could handle much more than that anyway. “When was the last time you ate, darling?”

Robert shrugs. Eames almost laughs – he’s still waiting to see if the explosive temper he glimpsed last night will return. The man has been reduced to a silent thing, possibly out of pain. Of course, being struck down by a car would be enough to bring anyone’s temper out. Still, he’d kindly take a fuck you from Robert right now. He’s beginning to worry that he’s gone mute. 

Of course, Eames doesn’t miss the way Robert disdainfully glances around his apartment. There are stains on the wall, some from an obvious source and others not so much, a lack of furniture, and the boards on the floor are loose and even a hazard in a few spots. Still, it’s better than a lot of the places Eames has slept in past days, and it’s sure a hell of a lot better than being on the streets. 

They finish eating quickly. “Right then. Let’s get you cleaned up proper, yeah?”

He’s relieved that when Robert emerges from the shower he looks five times better already. Eames helps him shave because he distrusts the inconsistently unfocused look in the other’s eyes. He watches Robert slide his fingers repeatedly down a lock of long hair in front of his eyes. Finally, he asks. “What me to trim that for you?” He’s never cut anyone’s hair but his own, but he makes it through the dark mop with kitchen scissors once he works a comb through the tangles. 

When they’re finished, Robert almost looks like he could be someone famous – a model or actor, except he’s too thin even for that. He’s still wearing Eames’ baggy sweats, and Eames finds himself grateful for the disillusion it creates. 

“Feel any better?” He asks to fill the void when their actions quiet. Eames isn’t sure what to do with him now.

Robert stares at him, one hand gently clutching him side. “Human,” he says. Eames nods; for him, it took hitting a man in a car to feel as much as he does right now. Guilt. Anger. Sympathy. Human. 

Eames knows he needs to start wheedling more information from him while he’s still talking, but he doesn’t know where to start, so the silence continues. Robert eventually sits on the mattress under the window and watches the sunny commotion outside, and in the stillness Eames can hear the faint wheeze in his breathing. His gut constricts. He doesn’t even want to look at Robert, he feels so guilty. 

Listening so intently, he’s shocked when he realizes there are tears running rapidly down Robert’s face, and his breathing is beginning to gain that distinctly wet sound. 

“What is it? Do you need more pain meds?”

Shaking his head faster than Eames has seen him move all morning, Robert stands on shaky feet. “I need to go,” he says, and his voice his husky. “I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“Now darling, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Stop calling me that!” His eyes are red and his nose running. “You don’t know me! You don’t believe me! I just want to be left alone!”

But Eames does believe one thing: that Robert is lonely. Lonely enough to make up a story like this, or lonely enough to leave behind a fortune and identity. It doesn’t matter which, not to Eames, who ran a man down who couldn’t afford a pat on the shoulder. One blow was all that was left to break – Eames was just the one to deliver. Humpty Dumpty. 

“I think you’ve been left alone long enough.” Eames holds his shoulders firmly, still enough so Robert won’t be able to twist and hurt himself further. “Robert, where were you living?”

“The high-rise on 50th and 6th.”

“That’s the last place?” Robert nods. “How long ago was that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.” His shoulder keeps jerking under his touch, but Eames doesn’t think he’s trying to dislodge it. Just test the weight. Like it’s a foreign feeling to be touched by someone else. An obsessive twitch. “What day is it?”

“It’s November 16th.” Eames traces the movement of him swallowing. His breathing sounds shallow again.

“Year?” He asks so quietly. “It’s…it’s 2010, right?” 

“It’s 2012, darling.” Eames smiles at him, halfhearted and half fulfilled. 

“It’s been four years.” His fingers are twitching again, and his shoulder still compulsively jerking. “It was December then.”

Anyone could know the date Robert Fischer went missing. It isn’t a secret – it’s just the one thing he seems to remember. 

Eames thinks back to that coat he was wearing when they made impact; it didn’t strike him as anything special at the time, but now he wonders. Robert went missing in December. He would have had a heavy coat on him then. The one Robert was wearing last night was thin, but from age and use or misuse. Lived in and worn in. 

It’s sitting in a bag from the hospital by the kitchen rubbish. 

He waits until Robert looks like he won’t bolt at the next available chance to take it out. Even though a dirty thing, a nurse had taken the time to fold it up. When Eames shakes it out, he’s confronted by a frayed and faded tag at the collar. It’s name he’s barely familiar with, but he knows it means money. 

Still. Robert could have stolen it. It doesn’t mean anything. Or course, Robert weighs about as much as an adolescent female and didn’t have enough practicality or maneuverability to avoid being hit by a car. Or maybe he didn’t have to nick it, maybe he just found it lying somewhere. On a street in the poorest parts of the city. 

“Robert, I really need to know the truth now.” How else is he going to help him? “Who are you?” Are you really Robert Fischer? But he can’t ask that again. 

His companion laughs. It’s grating. “I’m no one.” When he sobers up, he adds, “You’re no one.” Eames couldn’t argue with that if he wanted to; after all, this is his first semi-permanent address since he was a child. He doesn’t have a bank account, or any real friends or family. He’s never had an identity, but for him, it was never a choice. For Robert, it is quite possible he had that choice. 

“And what now?” He asks, because Robert Fischer could walk in anywhere at anytime and they’d bow down for him. To Eames, it’s unfathomable that he wouldn’t seek the easy life. 

“Now we’re nobodies together.”

 

 

Robert heals up nicely, even puts on a little weight in the process. Once the last of the yellow bruises fade and he gets a proper haircut, he looks like royalty to Eames. Robert eventually stops cursing Eames out for hitting him in a car, and instead curses him for staying away from the apartment too long when he’s on job runs. They move into a newer, nice place because Robert never stops making faces at the mystery spots on the walls in the old apartment, and even though it’s nothing luxurious, Robert seems much happier. He spends his days doing his own mysterious things – things that Eames is pretty sure are harmless, anyway. 

It’s not until one day many months later, over a year later in fact, that Eames notices there are new passports with their faces on it and a massive amount of cash bills piled on the table that he has to stop and ask.

“What is that?” 

Robert grins at him – more beautiful than ever now. “Our new identities.” They have new names and new origins. “And I was thinking that in another year or two you could have dual citizenship as an American.” 

Eames is so busy scrutinizing the passport in front of him that it takes a minute. “What? Are you proposing a shady marriage? Between…George and David? It wouldn’t be legal, even.”

“And so much of our lives are.” Robert is looking at his hands, wringing them nervously. Eames thinks he sees a shoulder twitch. 

“Robert,” Eames starts. He’s always been Robert to him, but now more than ever, Eames is convinced that it could be a false name. So easily he now has a new forged identity. “I have to know.”

In all this time since their first meeting, there still has been no news on Robert Fischer, not that anyone is still waiting for it, not even Maurice Fischer himself. In more recent interviews when the brave brought up the subject of his missing son, the man coldly responded that it was all a great disappointment. Like his son had failed a test instead of failing to come home one day. It made Eames feel sick, but glad that Robert didn’t see the televised snippet on the news. 

Robert didn’t have much interest in the news; his only interest seemed to be Eames. He’s hounded him bit by bit for his history over the past year, and even when Eames can’t tell him all of it, Robert pieces together the rest for himself. The foster homes. The bad jobs. The good jobs. Friends he had, and friends he could have had. A life that he could have had.

“You seem to think you’d be happy if you just had the money,” Robert remarks. He’s said it a few times, in different ways. 

“Only the rich are foolish enough to think otherwise.”

“You’d drown in all that happiness.”

So when Eames asks him once more whether or not he’s the real Robert Fischer, and he says, “I never lied to you,” Eames finally has to decide that he believes him. All of him. That Robert Fischer was simply a young man who felt more like dying than living in what was his identity, given to him at birth the same as Eames’ mother dying without even giving him a name, so he stepped out one day with a coat too light for that winter and never went home for another. He’s never had a home again, until now. 

“But will you miss it?” Eames asks him, mostly mockingly, as they pack their few belongings and leave the city. 

And for a moment, Robert looks so chocked up, and so unexpectedly, Eames has to take him by the arm and hold him up. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s not like I forgot, you know. I remember who I am. Who I was.” He looks up at him. “I just forgot the pieces.” Because Robert is missing gaps of time from his recollection, Eames found out immediately that first day they spent together. He didn’t even know the year, but he could recall other intricacies of his like, supposedly a billionaire’s life, and it was part of Eames’ lingering suspicions for so long. 

“I know darling.” Eames folds him into his side, feeling the rough material of one of his own jumpers Robert always wears now. 

They’re on a flight out of the country, Robert still looking the faintest bit upset, and Eames knows they still won’t ever really have a home. He’s got Robert now – and he’s still not entirely sure how it happened outside of the obvious, but he realizes with a warm flush through his body that stealing Robert Fischer has been his best theft yet. The most precious and valuable one of all.


End file.
